


And The World Goes Dark

by Cerfblanc



Series: Dan, Abra [4]
Category: Doctor Sleep (2019)
Genre: 1AM Conversations, Angst, Black Eye, F/M, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Parental Dan Torrance, Runaway, Teenage Drama, Uncle-Niece Relationship, Utility Jackets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21748777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerfblanc/pseuds/Cerfblanc
Summary: "You're fucking kidding me." Dan laughs without humour and almost drops his keys out of nervousness. "She's been gone for at least three hours and you haven't even called authorities?"There was another pause from Lucy on the other end of the line, but this time, her hysteria had transformed into a flickering confidence. "It's not a job for the police, Dan."
Relationships: Abra Stone & Dan "Danny" Torrance, Dan "Danny" Torrance & Lucy Stone
Series: Dan, Abra [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533671
Comments: 7
Kudos: 62





	And The World Goes Dark

**Author's Note:**

> In which Abra runs off in the middle of the night, and its up to Dan to bring her back home.

At one point in his life, the concept of normality was non-existent.

Dan figured the events that took place at the Overlook Hotel seemed to be the beginning of it, but in hindsight those horrors were nothing compared to enduring the gradual death of his mother. A fine line separated horror from grief—though the two shared the same sort of trauma. Normality had ceased from then onward, until Dan met Abra.

He never thought he would be standing in their homely, relatively normal kitchen, assisting Lucy in making an evening meal from scratch.

"I'm not cut out for this," Dan half-laughs, realising the irony, the knife just missing the side of his thumb as he diced a mixture of vegetables.

"Cut out for everything else, apart from domesticity." Lucy corrects. Dan can practically hear the teasing smile in her voice when she passes behind him with a baking tray. She had decided settling on some sort of Greek recipe that involved what Dan could only assume were the classics—tomatoes, black olives, sliced cucumber, red onion and generous chunks of feta. She was boiling a pot of pasta on the electric hob.

"You're doing quite well at it though." She adds, a moment somewhat too late, as though she were compensating for agreeing with him. "It could be worse."

"Yeah." He nods as he puts the vegetables into a colander for a second wash. "It could always be worse."

"Abra thinks you're good at it." Her daughter's name rolls off her tongue with a note of hesitancy. Only someone with a heavy amount of sixth-sense would be able to pick up on how on-cue and intentional the suggestion was, and Dan sought out the problem on Lucy's mind nearly automatically.

"Something up with Abra?" He asks without looking at her. He was about to say 'wrong' instead of 'up'.

"No, there isn't," Lucy replies. "I don't think there is."

"You can't hide anything from me, Lucy."

"But Abra can."

Dan glances up to meet her intent stare. She was chewing the inside of her cheek. She was right. Dan felt pummelled. Abra was sleeker in all aspects of the psychic bond that stood like a sailor's knot between them, much more than Dan. Unlike him, she had never suppressed her Shining. The last time he had seen her was when he picked her up after school a few days ago. He remembers her as she was—her usual self, supposedly.

In all honesty Dan didn't want to analyse the situation. He wasn't fit for the daily migraine anymore. He feels Lucy's subtle annoyance as he says the words, "Fifteen is a weird age. Have you ever thought that she's just maybe...growing up?"

"Yeah. I have." She answers shortly, her monosyllabic tonality reflecting her movements. Dan watches the domesticated skill flow from her fingers as she prepared a salad. Womanly. Motherly. "I don't think her age is the thing that's aggravating her."

She's not gonna let this one go, he thinks. "Have you spoken to her?"

Lucy slowly stops what she's doing, the tap water slathered across the backs of hands luminescent and shiny under the bright yellow kitchen light, beady droplets hanging from the rocket leaves and lettuce between her fingertips.

"Not yet." She says, and continues what she was doing.

"You should. Before anything happens."

"I will," she pauses as she reaches over for the colander of vegetables he had previously diced. "Tonight. After dinner, maybe." 

Dan (with intention) absently slips into Lucy's thoughts, and hears the next three words ring throughout her head: _'When you leave,'_ She thinks with a sliver of guilt. Perhaps she thought Dan would stand as some kind of barrier for Abra to hide behind, someone to confide in rather than her own mother, to fight her corner even if she wrong—Abra was Lucy's closest flesh and blood, and probably her last. She was her daughter. Did she really not trust him as much as he thought she did?

 _Don't take it personally,_ he thinks. _It's paranoia. You've been there._

"You sure you don't want me there with you?" He suggests, hoping she wouldn't catch on the fact that he had just mentally eavesdropped on her. From his experience, encouraging someone's dismissed thoughts sometimes helped in situations like this.

Lucy pauses momentarily, and blinks before shaking her head. "No. I'll be okay. Don't worry." She glances over to him and pulls a smile, one that was probably the most unconvincing, but Dan doesn't say anything more.

When the dinner was finally cooked Abra had set the table, somewhat subdued in her mannerisms as she placed the knives and forks adjacent to the plates. Dan and her exchanged a few words throughout the process, and when they all sat as a three a content silence came over them. Dan sensed Lucy reminiscing about David; she imagined him at the other end of the table, and he dismissed the sentimentality as quick as it had entered his head, and was suddenly triggered into remembering his mother. He attempts to read Abra without gaining her attention, but is cut off by Lucy's voice.

"How's your study going?" Lucy asks her daughter.

Abra lets out a quiet sigh. "It's good. Tiring, though." Dan watches the girl poke her fork at a chunk of feta. Her eyes pass his for about a second, and then back to her plate.

"What about friends?" Lucy adds. She's trying too hard, Dan can't help but think. It felt odd to be observing a parent and child like this. He suddenly felt like the outsider, as if he were peering through a frosted window at the stilted relationship between mother and daughter, as if the whole thing were a film and he was the audience.

"They're good." Abra responds. She doesn't look at Lucy, nor Dan, for the rest of the dinner until she decides to stand up with her near-full plate of a Greek concoction and used cutlery sliding against glazed ceramic. She had hardly eaten anything. "I need to shower."

When she disappears out of the room, Dan's eyes reluctantly land on Lucy. Her throat was tight and her figure was being forcibly composed, as if she were preventing an outburst. He could feel hurt emit from her.

"Lucy." Dan says, and she blinks several times and turns to look at him. _She's not even present,_ he thinks.

"I'm fine." She pulls a smile. "Just thinking."

  
  


* * *

The day after that was quite normal. For Dan, at least. He had a shift at the hospice, and stuck around for an extra half hour to feed Azzie. He ends up willingly mopping the downstairs level before he left as the janitor had caught a flu, and passed Billy at the tourist attraction.

His mobile begins endlessly ringing, when, after settling down to sleep two hours before, amidst the painfully familiar gut feeling of loss, he's about to be encased into a deep sleep until he has to wearily reach across his bed to pick up the device. He doesn't bother straining his eyes to look at who was calling. "...Hello—"

 _"DAN! Oh, thank God, listen—I-I really need your help—Abra's_ gone _."_

It takes him a moment to register the distraught, tearful voice—Lucy—and it takes him another instant to register what she was saying.

"What...do you mean by _gone_?" He says, his voice husky, though his sixth sense had already started to piece parts of the puzzle together before Lucy could even explain.

_"T-That doesn't matter right now, I just need you to find her."_

Dan switches on his bedside lamp, gets up to find a pair of jeans, phone still in hand. "When did she leave?"

 _"God, Dan—I have no idea, I don't know how long or when—"_ She lets out a strained sob. _"I just—I know she's been in her room since you left. I found her window open. It's been at least three hours."_

"Fuck," Dan utters low enough for her not to hear. He shoves his feet into his boots, pulls on a shirt and grabs his jacket before heading for the door, but stops in a panic and pats his jean pockets for his car keys.

_"Dan?"_

"Yeah, I'm here," he locates them on top of a set of drawers. "Do you want me to come over first?"

_"No—it's been too long."_

"But you've called the police already, right?"

There was a silence.

"You're fucking kidding me." Dan laughs without humour and almost drops his keys out of nervousness. "She's been gone for at least three hours and you haven't even called authorities?"

There was another pause from Lucy on the other end of the line, but this time, her hysteria had transformed into a flickering confidence. _"It's not a job for the police, Dan."_

Dan is on the verge of arguing with her when he opens the door and begins to make his way out of the tenancy, but his throat suddenly runs dry at her words. Maybe Lucy was right, despite how awful the idea sounded—but Dan couldn't begin to imagine the horror if something were to happen to Abra within those three hours. To find her bloodless and erased would become the ultimate nightmare. Dan would never be able to forgive himself. Not in this lifetime, nor in the afterlife.

Finally, he speaks, when the intrusive thoughts have fled. "I'll go find her."

* * *

He was overcome with an indescribable anger when he turned the key in the car ignition, the time approximately eleven o'clock at night. Abra wasn't stupid. She had always been quick and witty, she knew what she was doing and she never lost her head, unlike her mother, and to an extent, unlike Dan. She was the brightest person he knew.

But now, the Abra that Dan had grown to adore within the last three years was confusedly absent and out of touch.

"Don't be stupid." He utters under his breath as he rests his hands on the steering wheel of the car. "Just go home."

Before driving off Dan shuts his eyes and reaches out as far as he could, in order to locate a trail of Abra's energy. Nothing. He tries again, and the absence was deafening.

"Shit." _Don't panic._ In one frantic movement he presses his foot down on the accelerator and pulls onto the dark, wet, empty road. _You'll find her._

"I'll find her." He whispers to himself, unblinking. He swallows and tries reaching out again, harder this time.

It takes around thirty minutes to capture her faint but familiar warmth whilst driving into the centre of the town, and a sharp jab of motivation stabs his gut when he finds a trail, and then feels horribly stupid when he loses it, but when he takes the time to analyse the situation he realises with anger that she was mentally and quite effectively blocking him from following her.

"You little— _bitch_." Dan mutters, and he wants to cry amidst the frustration. _Why is she doing this? I would have noticed if there was something wrong with her from the very beginning...unless...she had been blocking me from the start? Fuck, maybe she really has lost all sense._

The thought made him painfully uneasy, and it reminded him of the days he spent in numerous bars getting hammered out of his mind by drowning his body in alcohol. He remembered the quiet, sub-conscious chaos that frolicked around the inferno in his head—it was how he blocked out everything and everyone, succumbing to the numbing fire. He had became silently delirious and awfully unpredictable during that time, and he frequently found himself wandering the streets for days on end until he decided he needed to sleep or eat.

He envisions Abra on foot, down some random pavement, small against the sordid scenery, disorientated, frightened and vulnerable in all ways imaginable.

Before Dan knew it an hour had passed. 

Fruitless and deflated he pulls the car in to the side of the road he was dwindling down with no luck or solid trail of his fifteen year old niece. He tiredly rubs one eye, then his face, and then he's tempted to tear his hair out and scream. But instead he closes his eyes. He takes a different approach to finding Abra this time.

He envisions himself vaporous. Without form. Almost invisible. He moves with the air, totally absent and beneath all decipherable layers of his Shine. Subtly, he slips beneath her mental block, and just as he does, her frenzied energy almost knocks him out.

Dan opens his eyes in that instant. He had a grasp on her. She was in the palm of his hand. She was tangible. With one hand on the wheel he changes the gear before driving off for the third time, the slim existence of hope spiking his adrenaline.

Eventually he feels Abra acknowledge his mental presence, and she shuts him out the second she figures he had found her—and to Dan's success, he had. Slowing down, he finds himself situated in a seedy part of the city and he's knocked with a bad case of anxiety, but automatically suppresses the feeling when he gets out of the car and gravitates to one end of the relatively quiet street. He's close. Awfully close. Almost too close. Even though Abra had cut him off long before he had stopped the car the remnants of her highly-strung energy stuck to him.

As he turns round the corner of the street and onto another road, he hears distant male voices, faint city traffic and his eyes land right on Abra. She was briskly walking down the street, toward where the traffic was coming from. What the hell was she doing?

As Dan makes his way across the road to follow and confront her, the voices he heard previously suddenly emerged at full volume, and three men in their mid-twenties staggered out of a concealed alley and onto the street. 

The situation pieced itself together within a matter of seconds in Dan's head.

Firstly, they were all under the influence of alcohol; the energy was downright bad and intoxicated; Dan knew the feeling like the back of his hand, and secondly, before he can properly react, they were approaching Abra. He didn't want to start a scene—but he could easily diffuse them if he wanted to.

As he gets closer to them one of the men started to holler, another shouts something obscene to her, Abra's walking pace picking up to strides, and in one rigid movement the stranger grabs her by the arm.

"Fuck," Dan utters, and he's just about to intervene, the three men totally oblivious of his presence, when Abra turns round and sinks her teeth into the man's forearm—he yowls in pain like a wounded animal, and the most physically fragile girl Dan had ever laid eyes upon is almost immediately smashed across the face by one of the drunkard's companions.

Dan felt as if he had been possessed by the same entity that slithered its way into his body at the Overlook—the same thing that absorbed the life out of his father and stole him away for good—when, without hesitation, he goes to thrust his fist straight into the man's jaw; Dan's knuckles crack as he feels them collide with what was probably a molar, a tooth of some description. One of the men throw a blow across the back of Dan's head, and he falters momentarily in the dizziness of just being struck, but overcomes the feeling as quick as it happened, and turns to pummel the one that Abra had bit to the ground.

The back of his head throbs when he turns to locate his niece, after dashing the faces of the three strangers whom were grovelling on the ground, and he expects her to be stood there behind him to take her under his wing, but to his confusion she had made off in the opposite direction.

"Abra!" Dan calls, but she doesn't stop. Once he catches up with her pace, he swiftly takes her by the arm and hauls her into an embrace, as if she were a fish caught on a line, but to his shock she shoves him away.

"Don't be stupid," He says as he catches her by the wrist, and she pulls at his grasp.

"Let me go!" Abra half-snaps, her voice shrill and choked, as if she were trying not to cry.

"You're hurt." Dan points out, his eyes wavering on her heavily bruised cheekbone. A little of the skin had broke at her brow, and blood trickled down near her eye.

She uses her free hand to dismissively wipe it away, effectively concealing the pain. "Just—let me go."

When Dan goes to grasp her forearm to pull her close she retracts violently, ripping herself from his grasp and shouts, " _Fuck off!_ "

Struck dumb at her language Dan freezes for a second before, in a flash of fury, violently jerking her back to him; she struggles, swearing, eventually sobbing, aimlessly clawing at his chest—he crushes her with the warmth of his body, with the strength in his arms, and with the fragmented peace within his mind.

"Stop." Dan utters, his lips at her temple, one laboured hand clasping the back of her neck. He cups her face, though she has her eyes shut tight, tears threatening to break through. Dan can hear her thoughts, but she wasn't talking to him—or anyone, for that matter, and he answers automatically. He leans into her ear, "It's not your fault," and she bursts into tears—the curses turn into hysterical sobs when she gradually quietens, her breathing deep and he feels the tension in her bones soften and vanish, and the sensation is almost like experiencing the death of an animal, it's body going disturbingly limp under his grasp. He hears her muffled breathing, her bruised cheek flat and hard against his heart.

"Abra," Dan says gently, and shudders at how spindly her frame was under his arms. "Let me see your face. Please."

Slowly and carefully, Abra pulls herself away. In the low nightlight her eyes glisten, and Dan barely brushes his thumb across her bloodied brow. Her skin was hot under his fingers despite the cold that drearily hung in the air surrounding them.

"It—It doesn't hurt." She manages, wearily embarrassed, because she doesn't meet his piercing (probably unconsciously fuming) gaze. Dan presses his lips together. She was oddly pale, her eyes round and set deep into her skull. He wanted to scream at her. He can't help but envision himself as his father, pulling his mother by her dark, almost navy hair, eyes ablaze with all sorts of feeling—absent to everything and everyone—and imagines hearing Abra's voice instead of his mother's hysterical cry.

As if on cue, they begin to walk back the way they came to the car in silence. The men from before had gone. Dan had one arm around Abra's shoulders, but only after a few steps of walking she staggers, her body anxiety-ridden and emotionally shattered with the aftermath of being thwacked across the face by some random drunk, and being caught in the warm web of her uncle's presence—the contrast was set all too close together, probably an overload on the senses for the girl, because she makes an uncomfortable sound and her breath hitches before she throws up onto the pavement.

Dan doesn't say anything, nor reacts. He watches and holds her. She coughs several times and swallows audibly, almost painfully, and when it all finally stops she wearily wipes her mouth with her hoodie sleeve. When she attempts to walk again Dan lifts her into his arms. She was heavy, despite how light she looked physically, but it didn't bother him.

"I stink." She half-mumbles into the crook of his neck. He could feel the cold tip of her nose at his throat.

"I don't care." Dan replies flatly.

* * *

They sit in the car for half an hour before driving home. They didn't exchange any words. Dan sent a text to Lucy saying he had found Abra and told her not to worry. The time was nearing to one o'clock in the morning.

"Take it off." Dan instructs, hoping his tone wasn't too livid. He feels Abra hesitate. She could feel his anger. She was frightened of him. He really didn't want her to be frightened. He had never wanted to scare her.

"What?" Her voice sounded awfully meek.

Dan felt an ache deep within his chest. He was seething. "I said _strip_."

It takes her a second to realise what he meant. She gingerly takes off her hoodie, body small in the passenger seat, and hands it to him. Dan then shrugs off his utility jacket and makes her put it on. They sit in silence afterward. Dan stares out of the car window screen unblinking. _Compose yourself already,_ he thinks. _Bring the hammer down._

"I want to go home." She swallows. "Please."

"We are not going anywhere," Dan starts quietly without looking at her, "until you tell me what the _fuck_ is going on." He couldn't bring himself to look at her bruised face as he spoke. Her youthful features had been battered with the violence of adulthood before it had naturally hit her, and it made him furious. He was torn between wanting to slap her for having a pointless teenage rampage and hunting down the three men that had approached her. None of this was meant to happen. He wanted to know why it happened—maybe he could somehow mend the situation without making it break even more.

"Why did you leave the house." He asks, but the question sounded more like an interrogation.

"...I needed to get out."

"Why."

There's a pause. "Didn't—didn't you experience it?"

 _Oh, God._ Dan feels his mind go blank and the anger vanishes. He had thought all this time she was being stupidly hormonal and stubborn like any other teenage girl, but it wasn't that at all—far from it. It was something entirely separate. Dan felt like a total imbecile, and he shuts his eyes to try and compose the blooming embarrassment before turning to look her in the eye. "Experience what?" He asks.

Abra blinks a couple of times as if she were still trying to process what she was wanting to say. She looks down at her lap. "...The Shine. It's like it's been magnified, or something. All over. I can't control it like I used to. It...it doesn't bend anymore," she sucks in a breath, and her eyes begin to water. "It's horrible."

While Abra tried to explain Dan attempted to compare his own experiences with what she was telling him, but it was pointless. Just because they had the same gift didn't meant they had the same knowledge of it. And besides, Abra was stronger than him; her abilities exceeded his own. He couldn't begin to try and understand how that amount of intensity felt and what it was like to have that pressed against every part of you.

He had no solid recollection of anything similar to when he was her age. Upon turning twelve, he started bolting everything into tin lockboxes that were dotted within the passages of his mental maze, and eventually suppressed the things that slept inside them so much that he was able to blank any future spectre that approached him. It was only when he was asleep was he at his most vulnerable. When he was awake nothing could touch him.

Abra had never locked anything up. She had confronted it all head on, unlike Dan. She hadn't drank herself into oblivion either.

"...Is that...why you ran off?" Dan says slowly. His tonality had completely changed, and it was almost frightening how bipolar the switch was from being maddened to softened in a matter of seconds. It vaguely reminded him of his father.

Abra shrugged. She avoided his gaze, and gnawed on her bottom lip.

"Why didn't you speak to Lucy—I mean, your mother? She would have helped. She's worried about you all the time."

"She can make it worse. Though it's not her fault." Abra points out, matter of fact. "It's—It's difficult for her to engage with me sometimes. When I'm talking to her...it's like I'm talking to a double; what she's saying isn't...what she's thinking. I know she loves me and wants to help but it's too overwhelming, and even if I told her what I'm really thinking no difference would be made. The average person only hears what they're told. I hear both words and thoughts, all at once...from everywhere. It never used to be like that." She finally turns to look at him, and her eyes are apprehensive. "I hate it, Dan—I hate all of it. It sets me apart from everyone even more. I can hear everything at school, not just at home. I hear everyone everywhere and it never _stops_."

Dan is silent. What was he meant to do in a situation like this? He certainly was no role model—a man reprimanded and reformed for sure, but no moral role model for a young girl of fifteen entering the dark depths of a relatively poisonous society. 

If Abra couldn't follow the words of her mother then who was she meant to take advice from? There was a huge difference between a girl seeking her mother from her father—or uncle, for that matter. The female agenda was so alien compared to the opposite sex, and vice versa.

Dan had never conformed to what society thought was acceptable, he didn't believe in any of that bullshit, but he did agree with getting the right person to help a child into adulthood and overcome whatever they were up against, whether that be man or woman or anything in between—but he wasn't exactly the person Abra was seeking.

The situation was even more difficult because Dan could only offer so much to her in terms of advice regarding her Shine. He wasn't as powerful as she was. If anything, as much as he hated the thought of it, she had to venture into the unknown in order to learn and get the answers she wanted herself. Things have to happen to you, don't they?

Dan sighs inwardly as he glances away from her round eyes. "Listen to me," he starts. "If you don't pull yourself together now you'll end up going down the same route as I did. I got lucky when I came to Frazier. It's never the same for everyone, Abra. You're going to lose everything if you don't try and confide in people. I never had anyone when I was your age to get me through everything—but you do. You have your mother, and you have me." He reaches a hand across to gently rub away the remnants of dried blood from her cheek. She winces a little but doesn't avoid his touch. "Your mother tries so hard, Abra. But if you feel like you can't talk to her I'm always here for you. You can tell me anything and everything, I don't care what about," he pauses, "even if it's like...y'know... _that_ sort of—" He stops himself and shakes his head. "—I'm, uh, sure you get the point I'm trying to make."

"Oh, God," She lets out a laugh, wipes a tear out of one eye, sniffles a little. "Okay. Sure."

"The last person I want to see upset is you." Dan adds. "You're so much stronger than you think you are—don't let outside things get into your head. Ever. You are incredibly capable, even when you think you aren't. Okay?"

Abra nods. Despite the purplish bruise that was blushed into her cheekbone the warm glow Dan was fondly familiar of had returned to her face.

* * *

She had fallen asleep in the passenger seat of the car when Dan pulled up into the dimly-lit drive of her home. Unlike the hysterical teenage girl he had seen before in the street she now looked like her thirteen year old self—a tired child—black lashes dark and matted, her skin smooth and her lips slightly dewy under the low nightlight. As he turned off the ignition as quietly as he could, planning to carry her into the house and have Lucy unlace her shoes, but then he remembered she was older than thirteen, her eyes fluttered open.

"We're home." Dan says softly.

"She's—gonna kill me." Abra stammers as she fumbles to take off her seat belt. Dan noticed how her whole frame looked like it had been swallowed up by his jacket. The shoulders hung low and the sleeves exceeded past her dainty hands.

Dan goes to open his door, and they both get out of the car. "I'll make sure she doesn't."

They're stood at the front door of the house, prepared to have Lucy scramble to their knock against lacquered wood, but before Dan can set the event into motion Abra mutters ashamedly, "I'm sorry, Uncle Dan."

"Sorry for what?" He turns back to look at his niece. She was stood with her gaze to the ground.

"Just—everything, I don't know," She mumbles and shrugs. She frowns and blinks without meeting his eyes. "You got hit by those assholes. I'm stupid. I shouldn't have—"

"Hey," Dan cuts her off as he settles his hands at her shoulders. She sucks on her bottom lip. "Look at me," She refuses, and Dan repeats, "Look at me, Abra." When he runs a gentle thumb across the bruise on her cheekbone her eyes flicker upwards.

"None of what happened back there was your fault." He says softly. "Stop blaming yourself."

"Okay."

"Promise me one thing though, will you?"

"What?"

"Talk to someone first before you run off again. You're not as experienced as Houdini. Yet."

She smiles a little at that, even though Dan didn't intend on making his words humorous, but it didn't bother him. All that mattered now was Abra being content with those around her, and being at peace with herself. _That's crucial,_ Dan thinks, _from experience._

"I—" Abra starts, with a tinge of hesitancy, Dan's knuckles an inch from knocking the door. "—I love you."

 _She hasn't said that for a while,_ Dan thinks, until now. _All grown up and awkward. That's okay._

Dan can't help himself from pulling her toward him and enveloping her whole being into his arms, probably crushing her, but neither of them seemed to be bothered by the comforting pressure and weight. He could smell her hair. There were hints of vanilla girlishness and female musk woven throughout it. He shuts his eyes momentarily, and tries to remember the last time he had ever felt this kind of liberation. In the dark, in the car, on the street, against the world, with an almost-daughter figure he could look after and feel genuine purpose toward. "I love you too."

Just as he speaks the front door clicks open and they pull away from each other as if they had been caught doing wrong, and Lucy was stood there in her dressing gown and slippers. Dan could see the paleness of her bare chest, the frame of her sternum oddly visible under her skin. He pulls his eyes away to meet her face.

"Abra!" She breathes out, a relieved smile spreading across her troubled features, and she goes to embrace her daughter but then freezes. The smile drops when she sees the obvious black-eye-in-the-making on Abra's face. "Oh my God—is that a bruise? Jesus Christ—what even—" she can hardly get the words out, her fingers feeling all over her daughter's cheeks, and then she shoots a questioning, nearly accusatory look in Dan's direction.

"We had an accident." He answers.

"We?" Lucy repeats.

He shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. It's over. She's fine now. I've spoken with her."

Lucy purses her lips. She wanted to say more, Dan knew and could tell from the glint in her eye. She wanted to kill him to an extent, but she was moreover pacified by having him bring Abra back alive and well, and in the flesh. She kisses her daughter on her un-bruised cheek. "Get changed and go up to bed. I'll be in after I speak with your uncle."

Abra glances at Dan one last time before reluctantly slipping behind her mother's unwavering figure, and into the mellow warmth of the house. It was only when the distant sound of her footsteps were heard thumping up the staircase did Lucy address Dan. Before she can speak he hands her Abra's hoodie, and as she takes it from him her brows knit together in processing thought at the smell, "Did she—?"

"She was nervous." Dan says.

Lucy nods slowly and folds the hoodie under one arm, and holds it against her chest. "Thank you. I really appreciate it."

"No problem."

She pauses, blinks at him, and finally rolls her tired eyes. "I…didn't mean for giving me the hoodie, Dan."

"Oh—yeah, sorry. That wasn't a big deal either." He unconsciously slips both hands into his jean pockets as one corner of his lips quirk to the side; a sign of his bashfulness. "I, uh, had better go." He steps back to turn and head down the driveway, but Lucy draws him back into a solid embrace he doesn't expect.

As Dan curls a slow arm around her waist he feels her let out a sigh, and she squeezes him tight. The melancholic affection reminded him of when he and his mother sat together in front of the television. "You're a blessing in disguise, you know." Lucy whispers. "Without you I don't know where Abra and I would be."

**Author's Note:**

> A kudo or comment would be very appreciated—many thanks to those that take the time to take a read of my work <3


End file.
